I am a quilter - a retired woman living with my husband in the Nebraska Panhandle. We are surrounded by beautiful semi-arid ranch country, and treeless hills and fields under incredibly wide blue skies. We are located far from the upheaval found often in large towns or cities. I am blessed to have delicious time to quilt and to appreciate my peaceful moments in an unpeaceful world.

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Friday, July 06, 2012

Scrappy star, Girl Cave

This is my latest scrappy project, after a class at Guild in May, with Bonnie Kucera of eastern Nebraska. This gal is the queen of little pieces - I helped hold her quilt tops up for Show and Tell and could check each seam on the back - yikes, every one was "twirled" - neat as a pin.

We started each block (above) with a 9 inch square of light and one of dark, facing together, then cutting in half diagonally . From that we cut our diagonal strips, then sewed the strips on both sides into a "tube", then cut the 5 small HSTs from each set of diagonal strips -- I LIKE this method for accuracy. The remaining part of those two 9 inch squares makes up the larger HST which is then trimmed to 4.5 in. Here are 4, 12 inch blocks, each block is made of 4, 6 inch units. The only thing "hard" about it was getting the pressing directions correct, so the seams all butt up nicely. Don't ya LOVE how the star sits INSIDE the light background?

I HAVE learned that when you start a particular technique, stick with that same technique (i.e. HSTs) for the entire quilt, and also stick with the same machine.

It seems I will NEVER have a quilt made from new, off-the-bolt fabric! Is something is wrong with me in that I only have "scraps"! But there is something comforting about using fabrics from what I've used previously. People at work have given me good fabric, and I LIKE that connection. Friends have given me fabric and I like THAT connection. Yes, I do purchase some, to fill out out my projects, but not a lot.

The heat has driven me to the cooler basement. It's not fancy but much more comfortable. I've upgraded/improved my computer down here, we're planning on connecting my DVD-only TV to cable for REAL TV watching, I've brought sewing and pressing stuff down here, and I already have my "girl cave." Life is good. 8-)) We've never utilized this space in previous years -- I have missed an opportunity -- funny how a person "puts off" things that will improve their life.

We are seeing temps in the low 80s for this weekend - YEAHHHHH, at last!!! We've had more than 3-4 weeks of temps near and over 100 degrees, with not a bit of rain.

Hope you all are cooling off soon, and that the fires in Colorado get OUT, and that POWER gets restored for those of you without it. Jeeesh, what a bunch of rough weeks!!!

I love those stars. As for "new" fabric, I seldom use it myself -- for all of the same reasons you mention. My niece's ocean wave quilt is a historical document of all of the quilts I've made-- some of the fabrics go back to the early 90's.

Hey, Elaine - those are some fantastic scrappy blocks. It's funny that you mention wanting to make a quilt from "new" fabric, and here I am, a bit antsy because I'd dearly love to work on a truly scrappy quilt but have to get through a monster UFO list first. :)

Great blocks. Perhaps sometime you could be talked into doing a tute on how to do it. Sounds like an interesting method.Scraps? The more the merrier. And if we were cutting stuff off a bolt, wouldn't they immediately fall into 'scraps'? lolKeep on scrappin'. Love your quilts.

The process sounds interesting, but is hard to picture. I love scrappy! My DIL said her mother never bought fabric - friends gave it to her and all her quilts were scrappy - she made them all by hand too! I now have some of her fabric. I have spent a lot of $ on fabric in the past, but now I have to watch my $ since I am retired, so I will be making more scrappy, plus I need to use them up. As kids, we used to spend a lot of summer time in the basement (near Chicago) because it was cooler. My Mom even had an extra stove down there and she would cook down there and we would eat there too when it was really hot. My sister lives there now and she slept down there a couple nights recently when the power was off.

Oh, I like that block. Can't quite follow the method, though...I need a picture. I was just thinking the same thing about always using scraps. My "new" fabric only gets pressed into service for borders.

Photos of the process? Pretty please? The fire in the Springs is 95% contained and the High Park fire is fully contained. Unfortunately, there are several large fires in southern Wyoming that are actually sending more smoke and ash our way. The monsoonal rains started yesterday and now there is flash flooding. How awful to see black water in the Poudre River instead of the crystal clear water.